Letters from the Buddel
COMMUNICATION / fascination bottle post office: For 30 years a dutchman on the North Sea island Terschelling collects washed ashore messages
Far the sea and the longing were large. On board only men. Of it verzehrte itself the heart after a woman. Aarke Wiking, sailor on a Swedish freighter and no man of large words, was full the bachelor life. When its ship in the Mediterranean crossed, past at other islands, he seized himself briefly: ' I ask all girls between 16 and 20 to announce itself if they want to marry nice, blond Sweden ', wrote it on a piece paper. If it rolled together, it was into a bottle and threw it, well corked, over board.
The sea took over the messenger service. The bottle carried price reliably over the waves and gave it scarcely two years later at the beach of Sicilies again. The factory hand Sebastiano Puzzo found it in the sand. It could be translated the message in the place and sent a letter to Scandinavia. By post office. Therein a photo of its daughter Paolina. 18 years old and still without man. Some letters and only twelve months later the nice blond Swede and the Italian worker daughter on Sicilies were trusted. That was 1958.
A true history. A fateful meeting. Two humans, who would have never met, united by water, wind and waves. A material for dreams. And motion picture films. ' Message in a bottle ', the history of the lonely Bootsbauers, which sends love letters to its dead wife and so new loving finds, agitates at present the German cinema public to tears.
Jelle Pals did not see the film with Kevin Costner, Robin WRIGHTS Penn and Paul Newman. It was not ever in the cinema. Already not, because there are Terschelling on the Dutch North Sea island keins. And the isle left Jelle Pals only once, in order to learn the occupation of the carpenter. After its return it is then nevertheless dear farmer become on its island. And passionate collecting tanks of swimming post office.
For 30 years and finds he looks up her here: Messages in bottles. Particularly on the Watt page they propel. Couches between other stranded goods - zerfaserten Tampen, bird skeletons, verblichenen cancer tanks and individual shoes. Usually they are from glass, in the meantime also from plastics and with screw-type cap instead of corks.
After each large storm and each spring tide it drives that today 72-Jaehrigen raus to the beach. He collected about 100 usually hand written notes meanwhile. Among them also a young girl, who looked ' a romantic man up for marrying '. That was before ten years. Whether the Dane had in the meantime exactly the same much luck like the Swedish sailor Aarke Wiking, farmer Pals does not know. Naturally it wrote it. Not, in order to make for it a request - Jelle Pals divides desk and bed with its wife for 49 years. But conscientiously it answers all bottle mails. Sometimes he gets to the thanks a few photos. And three times it had already attendance of bottle post office senders, that came from the Dutch mainland, from Belgium and England traveled. Of the Danish girl however he heard never again somewhat.
Their small message was the most romantic of all. Most notes, the Jelle Pals with its bent-operated fingers from the bottle necks desk, carry krakelige child handwriting. ' my name is Randy and I is 7 years old ', is there for example. Sometimes also religious zealots wrote: ' dear Finder ', there one noted, ' knows you, why you are on this earth? Because I you love. ' Signature: ' Jesus Christ '. And recently the authors indicate even their E-Mail addresses.
At all the wind turned. Who wants to send today a bottle post office, more does not even have to go on the open sea. It can leave even the rubber boots in the cellar: In the Internet there is meanwhile a bottle post office dispatch service. There one can leave a message, which a polite Englishman prints out and with Brighton into the English Channel throws (www.conwasa.demon.co.uk/bottle.htm). Not very romantically, but practically.
INGA OLFEN